Innovations in Online Gaming
Well, things really began back in 1994, when Antigua and Barbuda passed what is known as the Free Trade and Processing Act, opening the door for licenses to be granted to establish legal and licensed online casinos. It didn’t take long for companies to act. After all, people had long since known the potential this idea had but lacked any legitimate avenue to pursue such a venture.
Of course, in order to have a casino, you have to have software developers, and Microgaming take the crown for the originals when it comes to developing working gambling software. If you have heard their name before, that’s because they remain one of the biggest software developers for casinos across the world to this very day. In fact, along with some other first class names, they remain a beacon of quality and a company to look out for as a sign of a good online casino.
The year 1995 saw further developments as Cryptologic developed ways to make financial transactions over the internet safe. After all, what good is an online casino without the ability to transfer and receive money safely? Without these websites being secure, online casinos could never be a success. While not as widely noted, these security developments are every bit as important as the advancements being made on the software side of things.
It was not long until other countries established their own licensing jurisdictions, giving rise to a number of reputable casino operators.
To put it simply, gambling licensing authorities regulate online casino operators so that players can gamble in a safe environment, ensuring fairness when playing games and safeguarding customer data and protecting players' money. This means that you’ll be playing at a trustworthy casino without the worry that you will get scammed because these casinos must follow stringent rules. That’s why we only list the best online casino websites with a reputable licence, and we stress that you never sign-up to an unlicenced casino because you could risk losing all your money and never receive any of your winnings.
From this point on, the floodgates were opened and by 1997, there were already 200 websites to choose from. When we say that the amount of choice out there today is gigantic, we mean it.
Software developers helped to increase the popularity of online gambling thanks to technological innovations. As you can imagine, there wasn’t a huge selection of games at the beginning, but Microgaming kept delivering the shots by creating the first proggresive jackpot slot, paving way for more fantastic innovations.
Consider that level of growth and multiply that by over two decades of online success to get some idea of the scale of options now available. And all this was without users even being able to play cards online, as it wasn’t until 1998 that Planet Poker brought Texas Hold’em – still one of the most popular card games today – to the internet.
Today, you can pretty much find exactly the kind of casino site you want: one which caters exactly to your needs. Not only can you play poker and slots games, but also things like bingo, keno and you can even enjoy the live casino experience, with real life dealers from the comfort of your living room.
It hasn’t been a straightforward story but ultimately, thanks to the changes that have been made since 1994, we can enjoy casino games safely, to a high quality, playing for as much as we want and with the games we want. With the exceptional modern market that we have, it should be little surprise that the online gaming industry generated close to $135 billion, with an audience of over 2.5 billion.
Plenty of people who haven’t visited any online casinos – or at least haven’t been on any good ones – seem to imagine the online casino world as an isolated, even lonely experience. And perhaps that was the case at one time when the internet was a much more basic beast but today, it’s far from it.
You can play with real-life dealers online, go up against thousands of people for huge jackpots, and of course, play against a huge selection of people at different buy-ins on a wide selection of games. In fact, the online world may, in fact, make it easier to find competitors at a similar skill level, due to the sheer number of online customers looking to play. Not only that but a good online casino offers a warm, welcoming atmosphere which is far removed from the cold, corporate sites that some may imagine.
Perhaps the most obvious advantage of an online casino over its physical counterparts is that it’s just a simpler and less time-consuming option. You don’t have to get to an actual establishment, meaning there’s no travel time to delay you before you can bet a single cent. Plus, this means that you can play for just a few minutes if you want, whereas a brief game would hardly be worth the journey to a bricks-and-mortar casino.
Finally, online casinos mean you can play while eating pizza in your pyjamas, what makes them ultimately cosy and convenient.
The simple answer to what makes a good online casino is lots of things. As we’ve made clear, casino sites are no longer a couple of slots that you can play on your desktop. They are now hugely complicated, vastly varied and densely packed with content. That means there’s an awful lot to consider, including some things which are subjective.